Winter’s post is interesting, though. Let’s ignore the question whether seeing yet another story about the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan is so interesting. The main issue, of course, is whether or not these photographs were “manipulated,” or more accurately whether they were manipulated within the bounds of what people usually do. The real problem is that you cannot define this (compare this earlier post), so you can’t get around these kinds of debates (which, by their nature, never lead to a real conclusion). As I’ve argued here, there are ways around this whole problem - but they don’t involve the photographer: It’s a question of image use and of our own understanding of what images say and how.

That all said, that “Hipstamatic” app is not just some application that easily compares with standard dodging and burning. First of all, Winter writes

This is not a case of taking an image and applying a chosen filter later. A photo is taken and then you must wait up to 10 seconds, while the image is processed, before you can take the next one. In processing, every image receives what seems to be a pretty similar treatment: a color balance shift, the burning of predetermined areas of the frame and increased contrast.

That doesn’t make any sense. If the software applies the filter after you take it (during those ten seconds), then it literally applies a chosen filter later. The “later” just doesn’t happen in your studio, on some computer.

But the main problem here is not so much the use of that app, but what it does. First of all, we could imagine Winter taking photos with his iPhone sans that app. I don’t see anything wrong with that. That would be like taking photos with whatever other camera one can think of. But the “Hipstamatic” app - that just reeks way too much of Urban Outfitters and of trying to produce “cool” photos. Our hip war? I am pretty certain that’s absolutely not the message the photographer wanted to convey, but unfortunately running perfectly fine iPhone photos through that app produced just that look. The war is basically being romanticized. I can’t escape the feeling that that is what most people have a problem with.

Lastly, there’s also a bit of a debate about Michael Wolf’s Google images. Again, dva’s take is not to be missed. I’m with Matt that it’s basically street photography where the photographer didn’t leave the house (I’m not so interested in that whole appropriation debate). But to call this reportage or even journalism - that’s a bit of a stretch.